White Supremacy

The white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia and the subsequent murder of a young activist, made me reflect back on the disturbing killings of two Portland men. I’m sure folks remember the stabbings of two good Samaritans by awhite supremacist in Portland, this past May. The victims (and athird who survived the attack) were defending two African-American girls riding our city’s light rail system.

Shockingly enough, I was on the train when the incident occurred. Not the main train where the stabbings took place, but the second car. Amazingly, I didn’t get on the main car, because there was a crowd waiting to board and I didn’t feel like struggling with my son’s stroller. I decided to get on the second car. I wasn’t on train a couple of minutes, when a young woman and her brother came running to our car….screaming.

Another lady on the train asked them what was wrong, and they yelled out that people were getting stabbed. The little boy (probably around 9 or 10) looked terrified, then he started to cry. “Please don’t let him get me.” He said.

Of course, people from my train rushed off to see what was going on. A young Black woman ran back onto the car with fear in her eyes. “Make it stop.” She said softly. It wasn’t long before authorities arrived and everyone was ushered off the platform. I will never forget seeing a woman with blood all over her hands, talking to police looking dazed. Later, it would turn out, she was one of the people who tried to comfort the victims.

The killing of these two men and the death of the Charlottesville’s victim, highlight a perverse irony of the current white supremacist movement, they seem to be killing more white people as of late.

White supremacists are so filled with hate, rage, and violence they are even willing to go so far as to kill their own. It’s rather bizarre.

These horrifying incidents (and they won’t be going away anytime soon), is exactly why Black folks/people of color have called on our nation time after time after time, to address the evilness of racism in America.

Until our society gets real on how this country was built, we will always be back at square one. What I’ve noticed is that many white supremacists tend to have a warped sense of history, they truly think this is “white man’s land.” It is not. It is Native/Indigenous land, that became an economic powerhouse due to the exploitation of Black bodies via slave labor. It’s a country that then thrived off of immigrants/immigration. The foundation of the United States, starts with people of color.

Perhaps, I am wrong. These white supremacist do know the truth of our history, and maybe that’s why they are afraid. Native/Black/other folks of color blood runs deep in American soil. And despite all of their attempts, we keep surviving. White people are already a minority in many parts of the country.

Instead of embracing it as an opportunity to make amends for the sins of their fathers, and build bridges/coalitions with people of color, some white folks are panicking. It is how we got Trump. It is how we get tragedies like what happened in Charlottesville. A young woman died over foolishness. Rest in peace Heather D. Heyer.